[Milsurplus] Re: Veddy Interesting but....

[Unserviceable but Repairable]

WOW!!!!

I'll be durned Hue.  I only just discovered that a 5-tone BC-463 tx in these
parts was a gunnery drone controller. p/o ARW-8 system

Wish I cud be Boy Sherman & step into Mr. Peabody's way-back machine &
snag 'em

Michael Tausen wrote & sed Fair once sold 'em & they had vibrating
reed relays as "band pass filters."  Ingenious

Maybe Fair Radio (friend) Phil still has one stashed somewhere.

There's a cover art'l in Radio News 10/47 on Drones.  Shows
"radio desk" bolted to Shangri-La's flight deck as F6F takes off.
Goes on to say how they successfully flew thru Op'n Crossroads
mushroom cloud... but one ran away & was caught 53 mi.s later &
brought back to a safe landing on Roi island.

Army used aphrodite B17s.  Showed TWO control pos'n on runway.  1st for
run-up & brake release.  Other 2000' on down runway for ailerons & rotation.

Both acft used 10 channel radios which, I gess, were ARW-1/ARW-18.

The 5-channel gunnery sets seem to have been "bang-bang servo systems."  
Like 1st model hobby RCs with "escapements" (mech. flip-flops).  Example: 
Rudder tone wud bump rudder opposite way fm last tone, usw.  
Bet 10-tone things were proportional control.

That V1 "reset button" evidences same idea.

But so much of this is just lost dangit except....

Except a pal who set up ATK/ATJ 400-line TV systems @ Alomogordo in '48.  
Blake Hawkins.  Worked well for 1st half second after detonation - & 
that was all they wanted.

Hey funny story about the drone that just sat on flite deck nr Iwo Jima
saying "I think I can..."  Ryan made some of those things & they had a hell
for powerful McCullough 6-cyl flat-opposed 2-stroke.  Have seen a
book.  They'd get up & go (mebbe 220 mph?)

Those were techno-gutsy times.

  M